Pages

Monday, October 28

What's growing in October?

It's still warm and sunny in the daytime although it is getting cooler at night. By that I mean in the day it is still shorts and t-shirt weather and add a sweater in the evenings. We're still eating lunch and doing school homework outside on the terrace, it's lovely. (But I can't wait for it to be cool enough to wear jeans and boots again!)
Let's have a look around the garden and see what we have ready to eat in October:

We have a Cabbage Patch! No babies hiding in it though. I like to chop up the cabbage leaves and sizzle them in a shallow pan for about 5 minutes with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper, then serve as a side dish.

No cabbage patch kids to be seen but I found a cat amongst the fennel..This is Lilly, she could easily be mistaken for a small sheep. I like my fennel roasted in the oven with olive oil, rosemary and other veggies :)

The garden fairy has hung all the onions up in bunches. I keep meaning to bring one down into the kitchen but actually quite enjoy foraging around outside in the dark with a torch for my dinner ingredients!

The grapes are now ripe..they're not too sweet, probably good for wine making, which Zio Giovanni does. I will probably juice some of them.

The broccoli comes and goes in waves. At the moment there's not much, but I've got a recipe coming up as soon as more grows!

The neverending peppers are still growing. These pointy ones are really sweet and I've been stuffing them, making frittatas and I even added them into a very un-Italian beef curry the other day.

These long squash-type things are cuccuzza. This one is currently 1.24 metres long, not sure if it's still good to eat so we'll just leave it hanging there for now.

There are 2 persimmon trees dropping their pungent fruit all over the floor, and they are attracting rather a lot of flies. I thought they ripened later in the year but looks like these are ready!

And then....And then I thought I'd died and went to heaven, for right over in the far corner of the garden, hidden behind the lemon trees I found the best thing EVER!
I found a pomegranate tree!
I absolutely love pomegranates and yesterday was seriously contemplating climbing over a wall into someones olive grove where I had seen a single pomegranate tree bearing fruits amongst the olive trees. But there was somebody nearby so I decided to wait...

Only to find that we've got our own pomegranate tree and nobody ever told me! It's bursting with fruits, although not quite ripe yet, but soon, very soon (rubs her hands with glee).